On Tuesday, 22nd November, 20 American students and their teachers from the Bitburg High School came to visit us in Wittlich. They arrived at 9 am and we, a Grundkurs English 12 and students from the classes 10a and 10b, met them in the schoolyard. Ms Kratzer and Mr Weil, who were in charge of the exchange, divided us up and assigned American students to each of us. That was a good idea, because we were directly responsible for a specific American student and had to talk to him or her! We showed “our” Americans around school and tried to get to know each other. After the first break, we took them with us to our English lesson.
There we stayed in our small German-American groups. Telling each other funny facts about ourselves helped break the ice and was a fun activity. We then spoke about traditional holidays in Germany and in the US. Did you know that Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas aren’t the only American holidays? After that we had a “question round”, where we were able to ask questions about their daily lives, their school system, their habits, typical American food, but also about their opinion on the recent elections, Donald Trump and gun control. They also had some questions for us, which got us to thinking about German culture and traditions. We can definitely say that we learned a lot about each other in a very short time.
During the last lesson, we all met again with Ms Kratzer, Mr Weil and the American teachers, and sat together with snacks and drinks. The atmosphere was relaxed, which gave us the opportunity to talk more and also get to know one or two of the other American students. We definitely formed some friendships and now we hope to visit the Americans at their school in Bitburg to get to know their environment!
All in all, the whole day was a very interesting experience, because the American culture and way of life is quite different from ours after all. As some of the American students didn’t speak any Germany, it was a great opportunity for us to really apply and improve our English!
Ms Kratzer’s English Grundkurs 12
